Albert Einstein On Free Will

[SimpleGuy]

Just stumbled upon this presentation, quite good explanation of how our actions come true and how free will is illusion

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nxkCQDiD40ql2bqCoZg8ClGH_WxZgqqoTV1oB_ORuFQ/htmlpresent

[RisingLane]

Here’s the video that goes along with it:

Gary Weber has a whole playlist on this topic.

I love the Einstein quote; it's very poetic:

"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust—we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

[Hojo]

We are just watching a movie. Chill out and grab popcorn. When you die the person watching the movie dosent die.

Edited Sunday at 05:35 PM by Hojo

[RisingLane]

16 minutes ago, Hojo said:

We are just watching a movie. Chill out and grab popcorn. When you die the person watching the movie dosent die.

That's right. I see my profile picture as a sort of cosmic film strip.

 

Edited Sunday at 05:52 PM by RisingLane

[Pedro M]

Unfortunately, people use this as an argument to play the victim. 

[RisingLane]

24 minutes ago, Pedro M said:

Unfortunately, people use this as an argument to play the victim. 

Well, somebody has to play that role.

Determinism on its own is bad news. You need to realize God. God cannot be a victim. Only the ego is a victim.

In a way, you could say we’re all victims. Even the luckiest person alive is still at the mercy of their circumstances. Simply having to exist here makes you a kind of victim—just maybe a fortunate one.

Edited Sunday at 06:38 PM by RisingLane

[SimpleGuy]

Yeah don`t be victims. still take 100% response-ability

[Joseph Maynor]

What expertise does Einstein have to opine on free will as opposed to anyone else?

[SimpleGuy]

10 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What expertise does Einstein have to opine on free will as opposed to anyone else?

Because his second name sounds like Epstein

[RisingLane]

28 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

What expertise does Einstein have to opine on free will as opposed to anyone else?

His deep understanding of physics.

Here are more Einstein quotes about free will.

[Joseph Maynor]

8 minutes ago, RisingLane said:

His deep understanding of physics.

Here are more Einstein quotes about free will.

But why does this matter to your inquiry as to whether there is free will or not?

[RisingLane]

37 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

But why does this matter to your inquiry as to whether there is free will or not?

I no longer question whether free will exists; to me, it’s all just poetry now—the poetry of determinism.

For example:

“Life is about allowing yourself to be played by nature. The metaphor is not you are playing yourself as an instrument; you are the instrument that nature is playing. You are the violin in the hands of God. Allow yourself to be played. If you want the orchestra to play in unison like an organism, that’s what it’s about. Our role as metacognitive agents is to pay attention, to observe how we are being played … To recognize that your life is not about you is not to say that your life is meaningless. The blossom of the apple tree is not about it, it’s about the apple—without the blossom there is no apple and there is no next apple tree. The fact that our lives are not about us does not entail or imply that our lives are meaningless. They’re extremely meaningful precisely because they are not about us, precisely because they are about something much bigger than us.” - Bernardo Kastrup

Edited 16 hours ago by RisingLane

[Joseph Maynor]

8 minutes ago, RisingLane said:

I no longer question whether free will exists; to me, it’s all just poetry now.

It's a fascinating question.  I feel like we default to think we have free will and that others do too.

[RisingLane]

24 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

It's a fascinating question.  I feel like we default to think we have free will and that others do too.

Yes, it’s a powerful illusion, and I’m not sure why it exists. I suppose it’s enjoyable while it lasts—the pride of believing you’ve made the right choices, and the dread of thinking you’ve completely messed it up. These emotions are all part of the separate, ego-driven dreamstate. Waking from this dreamstate means realizing that life is living itself, and you were never truly in control.

[Pedro M]

On 28/12/2025 at 3:23 PM, RisingLane said:

Well, somebody has to play that role.

Determinism on its own is bad news. You need to realize God. God cannot be a victim. Only the ego is a victim.

In a way, you could say we’re all victims. Even the luckiest person alive is still at the mercy of their circumstances. Simply having to exist here makes you a kind of victim—just maybe a fortunate one.

True!

[RisingLane]

This concept is also found in Islam:

"The Jabriyya believed that humans are constrained to a set path, do not have a choice, and that everything that happens in society happens by God’s will and destiny."

[Rodrigo Costa]

I believe we are channelers of will rather than containers of will. Will does not arise from our conscious rational intellects, or even from our unconscious minds. And free will belongs to the universe as a whole.

Predictability is another matter. Individual free will might be negligeable or even non-existent. But since "will" belongs to something greater than life and humanity then causality must also expand to the universe as a whole, and it becomes impossible to make absolute predictions about anything outside of abstract logic and math - in fact, the same reasoning can be applied to non-living objects.   

We can, however, make reliable probabilistic predictions, which are relative predictions.

Edited 30 minutes ago by Rodrigo Costa